


Letting Go

by sockfics



Series: Once Upon a Dark Time [3]
Category: Frozen (2013), Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Aphrodisiacs, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Drugged Sex, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, F/M, I'm Going to Hell, Loss of Virginity, Marital Duties, Non-Consensual Somnophilia, Palace Intrigue, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Sexism, Period-Typical Underage, Political Expediency, Political Hostage, Sisters, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Stockholm Syndrome, Treaty Negotiations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2018-10-08 19:08:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10394109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sockfics/pseuds/sockfics
Summary: Queen Elsa's ascension to the throne was tumultuous to say the least.  In its aftermath, she has a peace to negotiate, her sister's wedding to plan, and a kingdom to convince that her reign will mean stability and prosperity for the realm.  All of important for the future of her people.  All things she was raised to be able to handle.But no one ever taught her how a queen is supposed to handle it when the one thing that should be hers alone seems completely beyond her reach.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please be aware that, as with all of my other fics under this profile, this story will contain any number of highly problematic or triggery attitudes and scenes. **_I do not condone any of these behaviors, actions or attitudes IRL._**
> 
> Comments are moderated. Concrit and other forms of positive or reasonable feedback is not only welcome but encouraged. Flames or hate will be summarily deleted without response.
> 
> I haven't been able to find any reference to Hans' parents' names, or those of most of his brothers, so I just made some up. If anyone can point me to a canon reference to them, I'll go back and edit appropriately. I've also tossed in a variety of OCs, both named and unnamed, that would make up the necessary members of a royal court. Also, Elsa and Anna have been aged down slightly to more closely match the ages they would have been during the period in which the movie and the Enchanted Forest in OUaT are set. Therefore, Elsa is 18 and Anna is 15.

**~~~***~~~**

The throne room was hushed, the normal chittering of the courtiers silent as the diplomatic envoy from the Southern Isles filed in.  Elsa watched them with impassive eyes, her face a mask of ice as the queen of the Southern Isles, Hans’ own mother, walked in at the center of the contingent.   _Cunning,_ Elsa thought, _to send his mother to plead for his life.  To ask me, woman to woman, to refrain from executing her child._

She saw the hint of a flicker of Queen Aife’s eyes towards her youngest son, who stood in chains and under guard on the left side of the audience chamber.  Elsa was expected to pronounce sentence on him soon, after hearing out and deliberating on his mother’s plea for some form of clemency.  Anna, who stood to the right of the throne with her eyes fixed balefully upon the royal prisoner, had made it plain that she believed Elsa well within her rights to deny Aife’s request and have Hans put to death.

If only Elsa could make her sister understand that what it meant to rule also meant that nothing was ever that simple.

Upon the entire envoy taking their places, the lesser ranked among them bowed to Elsa on her throne.  Queen Aife inclined her head and curtsied with exquisite grace; a fit greeting between equals.  Elsa steeled herself.  “Welcome to Arendelle, your royal Highness.  It seems a sad thing that we must meet under such circumstances, but we are glad to finally greet our cousin from the south:  in friendship and in peace.”

Aife’s smile was perfectly calculated.  “It is for the sake of peace that we have come, your Majesty.  Our youngest son has committed grievous crimes against your person and family, and we would hope to counsel with your Grace in due course, that his actions are not said to reflect on the Southern Isles as a whole.  Indeed, he is but the least of our thirteen princes, and all twelve of his brothers have joined myself and my husband, King Nils, in sharpest condemnations of his actions, as well as assurances of our deepest regrets and abiding love for our cousins in Arendelle.”

“It is with profound relief that we are so reassured by your Grace,” Elsa acknowledged, “and we look forward to counselling with you on the morrow in the hopes of mending the breach rent between us by the misguided actions of your youngest prince.  In the meantime, we hope you shall find our hospitality suitable to your needs.”

“Your Grace’s generosity surely shall not be found lacking,” Queen Aife replied smoothly.  “And with your leave, we shall withdraw to take our rest, as the journey here has been most tiring.”

“Of course, your royal Highness,” Elsa agreed.  “By all means; we shall see you for the evening meal.”

“It shall be our honor, your Majesty.”  And with that, at Elsa’s nod, Aife and her coterie withdrew.

Tempted though she’d been, Elsa had refused to look over at how Hans might have reacted to seeing his mother.  Without so much as glancing over, she gestured to her guards to remove Hans from the throne room, and then motioned the chamberlain to announce the next petitioner.

Her eyes absolutely did not flicker towards the shock of red hair disappearing into the antechamber as one of her landed gentry began to explain the nature of a land dispute he was having with his neighbor.

*    *    *

The dinner in honor of the Southron delegation was perfectly uneventful, if somewhat sharp in its precisely appropriate small talk.  Elsa couldn’t recall any function leaving her more emotionally drained, save the state memorial service after her parents were lost at sea.

As exhausted as she was, as she had been in the weeks since her tumultuous ascension to the throne, Elsa could not find any rest in sleeping.  She tossed and turned in the great bed her parents had once occupied, unable to sink into the comforting weightlessness of dreaming and aching for the shape of the body that should be sharing the bed with her.

The next morning, when Aife was admitted to Elsa’s private study, she saw the older woman’s eyes rake over her in open assessment.  It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, especially in light of her powers, but Elsa got the uncomfortable impression that Aife could see through Elsa’s carefully-schooled expression.  “Good morning, your royal Highness,” she greeted politely.  “I trust you slept well.”

“Better than it appears you have, your Majesty,” Aife replied with a graceful curtsey.  “The crown is a heavy burden for one so young as you, I fear; even with years to prepare yourself for its weight.”

Elsa shrugged carefully and gestured at the side table.  “Would you care for tea?”

“That would be lovely; thank you.”  Aife sat when Elsa motioned her to a chair, accepting a cup graciously after Elsa had poured for them both.  “Perhaps we should dispense with the exquisite courtesies, your Majesty.  We spend hours enough on them, and my reasons for being here are dire, indeed.”

“If you wish.”  Elsa sipped her own tea, gazing at the other queen thoughtfully.  This woman was not co-ruler of the Southern Isles; she was a consort to a king, a diplomatic envoy with no more power than her husband saw fit to grant.  Anything they agreed to here could be overturned later if her king determined the terms not to his liking.  “Let us speak plainly, then:  you wish me to spare your son’s life.”

“I wish to spare us all a war.”  Aife sipped her own tea, her eyes never leaving Elsa’s face.

“As do I.”  Her tea had tiny flakes of ice on the surface; Elsa put her cup down on the table before them and took a deep breath.  “I have no wish to play the game of veiled threats and double-meanings, your Grace.  Your eldest son, Prince Gerhardt, has been married for twenty years, and has heirs of his own that have reached marriageable age.  With the succession secure, you and your husband have spent decades using your abundance of sons to forge alliances.”

“As any noble house would do,” Aife confirmed, her tone giving nothing away.

“Then let us set terms, your Grace.”  Elsa folded her hands in her lap, looking squarely at the other queen.  “Transmute Hans’ rashness into the foundation of a lasting peace between our kingdoms.”

Aife’s eyes widened just a fraction, then narrowed in suspicion.  “You would have me bargain for my son’s life, like trading horses at a county fair?”

“Why spend political capital when you can cultivate it?” Elsa countered.  “You may believe that Arendelle would be easy to overwhelm militarily, but you have heard what my magic can do.  Even if you were to eventually break through our defenses, your troops and those of your allies would die by the legion from exposure and starvation before that happened.  But moreso, calling upon allies to provision a war costs favors and money.  On the other hand, a treaty of mutual peace and protection with Arendelle would be far more profitable in the long run.”

Aife’s eyes narrowed further, and Elsa held the woman’s assessing gaze.  It was a gamble, but Elsa had talked until her voice was hoarse with her advisors.  They had all agreed that this was the only way to stop the war that would surely follow if Hans was executed.

“Provided that my son remain here as your hostage,” Aife finally said, a touch of iron in her voice.  “His life forfeit if the terms of the treaty are broken.”

“Not as elegant a solution as marriage, I know,” Elsa replied, her voice touched with sardonic sweetness.  “But the balance of your son’s life will still be spent buying the alliance your house has sought with mine for two generations.  In the end, your Grace, where is the difference?”

Aife’s expression grew dangerous.  “That is very close to a slander, your Majesty.”

“Was not your life, and maidenhead, the price of the alliance between Glowerhaven and the Southern Isles, your Grace?”  Elsa’s expression was innocuous, even if her words struck deep.  “Arendelle may not have so many allies as the Southern Isles, but we are not without sources of information.  Your marriage is well-known to have been politically motivated, as were the marriages of at least half of your sons.”

“Spouses do not live under threat of execution should a treaty not be honored to the letter,” Aife retorted.

“I suppose that depends rather heavily on the temperament of the ruler whose trust was betrayed.”  Aife’s mouth opened, an angry response rising, and Elsa held up a hand.  “I speak in generalities, your Grace.  Our realms have both seen our thrones occupied by those with little regard for life or honor in the past, as you well know.”

Aife settled at that, clearly rethinking her next words.  She took another drink from her cup, gathering herself.  “My son bears a soulmark,” she said finally.

“So I understand,” Elsa acknowledged.  “What of it?”

“Do you mean to prevent him from finding that person?” Aife challenged.  “If you keep him here as hostage, sentenced to spend his days in a tower cell, you will not just punish him.  You will be sentencing his soulmate to a lifetime of loneliness.”

“His soulmate will have access to him, should they wish it.”  Elsa could scarcely believe how even her voice was.  “There will be restrictions, of course, but should his soulmate be found or present themselves to us, we will make what accommodations are possible.”

Another calculating expression, this one tinged with the faintest curiosity.  Elsa wondered for half a moment what had shown on her face as she’d spoken.

“It is rumored that you and your sister have soulmarks as well.”  It was as close to an open question as Aife dared.

“Such is the chief reason that my parents did not seek a betrothal for us,” Elsa replied.  She could hear the tightness of grief in her voice; wondered if Aife could.

“And why your sister is being allowed to marry a commoner?” Aife pressed.

Elsa let her eyes flash.  The temperature in the room dropped noticeably.  “My sister’s forthcoming marriage is of no concern in this matter, your Grace.  And considering your son’s recent actions, I would tread carefully on the subject if I were you.”

“I meant no offense, your Majesty,” Aife apologized, lowering her eyes and nodding her head in a gesture of contrition.  “I merely sought confirmation; the speculation has been rampant among peerage and commons alike since her engagement was announced.”

“So my councillors have said,” Elsa replied, forcing herself to relax her will.  “Many times.  But a soul bond may not be dismissed for political expediency; to do so has proven disastrous for more than one monarch.”  Aife let out a mild chuckle at that, and the tension cracked a little further.  “But are we in agreement then, your Grace?  That we shall negotiate in good faith, and put this matter to rest without bloodshed on either side?”

Aife considered a moment, then nodded gracefully.  “You have been well-schooled in statesmanship, your Majesty.”

Elsa smiled sadly, then rang for a footman.  “Would that my father still lived, that I could continue my lessons, your Grace.”

A smile of compassion ghosted across Aife’s lips even as the footman appeared.  Elsa quickly dispatched him to summon the Privy Council and Queen Aife’s diplomatic retinue.

It was going to be a very long day.

*    *    *

“Elsa, what were you thinking!?”

It was a near thing, but Elsa refrained from using the vapor of Anna’s breath to fit her for an ice gag.  “I”m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she answered, not looking up from the documents on her desk.

“He tried to kill us both!” Anna shrieked.  “ _How_ can you let him live?  Especially _here_ , under our very roof!”

“The palace boasts a number of roofs, Anna,” Elsa explained patiently.  “And the tower cell to which Hans is confined has one quite separate from the one over your apartments.”

“You know what I mean,” Anna snapped irritably.  “How could you?!”

Elsa finally looked up at her raging sister, her expression stony.  “Am I not the queen, sister?”

“Well, of course you are-”

“Then be glad I am a merciful one and modulate your voice,” Elsa cut in.  “Because you’re treading dangerously close to the line of my tolerance.”

Anna blinked, her mouth snapping shut.  “Elsa…”

“Hans’ deception was dangerous enough,” Elsa informed her.  “But the prospect of open war with the Southern Isles would be disastrous.  If you had listened to Father even once in your life, or his advisors, you would know that.

“I am a young queen with barely-stable magic.  That makes us _vulnerable_.  We need peace, and the way to keep that is to _not_ provoke the Southern Isles and their interminable web of allies.  Hans acted alone for all we can prove; keeping him alive and hostage gives us surety that it will _stay_ that way. And when the treaty is signed and sealed, they will in due course give a child to marry my heir, and we will give a child to marry a prince of their line.  From then on, we will be bound by blood, and they honor bound against warfare.  And then Hans can wither and die in his tower cell for all anyone will care, and it will finally be over.”

Anna was pale, shaking as she absorbed her sister’s pronouncements.  “You’re talking about my children,” she whispered.  “You’re bartering away my babies' happiness before they’re even born to keep peace with the country that spawned the man that tried to kill us.”

“My children will take precedence,” Elsa corrected, looking back down at the page on her desk and glancing it over once more before signing it.

“I’m the one about to get married,” Anna reminded her.

“Which means nothing,” Elsa said flatly.  “You could be barren.”

It was aimed to hurt.  It struck true, driving Anna from the room in a storm of weeping.  Elsa ignored it.

Anna had ignored her heartbroken tears often enough.


	2. Chapter Two

**~~~***~~~**

Months passed.  The treaty with the Southern Isles was finalized, ratified and signed by both rulers in properly stupendous ceremony.  Though Arendelle hosted the signatory event, Elsa noted with what was most certainly only clinical interest that none of the royal guests requested access to Hans:  not King Nils, not Queen Aife.  Not Crown Prince Gerhardt or his eleven other brothers.  Not even one of the several nieces and nephews among the royal brood that were of an age with their imprisoned uncle.

If their abandonment of Hans caused a tug of empathy in Elsa’s chest, she refused to acknowledge it.

Anna’s wedding to Kristoff became the primary focus after that.  With Elsa’s soulmate not yet in evidence and their gender impossible to predict, the Privy Council wanted to see at least one of the princesses wedded and bedded before the year was out.  It privately rankled that they had assumed, like Anna had, that it would be Anna’s children to fulfill the intermarital clauses of the treaty as well as provide for a secure succession in Arendelle.  As if Elsa’s soulmate should have simply presented him or herself at her coronation ball like a gift, and since they hadn’t, they had no intention of coming for her at all.

Elsa knew better, but the knowledge was bittersweet.  Knowing the truth didn’t change it.

And so she sat with Anna through fittings and consultations, agonizing over silks and laces and seating charts for the grandest wedding Arendelle had hosted in a generation.  She stayed by Anna’s side through storms of frustrated tears and bouts of quiet nervousness in the dark, and Anna eventually forgave her for the snipe about possibly being barren.

Two days before the wedding, the royal midwife came to Anna’s apartments after dinner, and Elsa held her sister’s hand during a frank discussion of what ‘consummating the marriage’ would entail.  The woman was old enough to have been their grandmother, and was less than delicate in her explanations of the process.

Once she left, Anna clung to her sister’s hands for a long moment, pale and wide-eyed.  “I think I was less nervous before she showed up,” she finally confessed.

“Don’t be a goose,” Elsa chided gently.  She extricated her fingers from Anna’s and stood, walking to the sideboard and pouring her sister a goblet of wine.  “You heard her:  there’s no difference between queens and common women in that moment.  We all have to face it if we wish to spend our lives with a man in our beds.”  Returning to where her sister sat, Elsa handed her the wine with a reassuring smile.  “Kristoff loves you to distraction; you are his soulmate.  I’m sure he’ll be as gentle as he can.”

Anna bit her lip before taking a sip, which turned into a longer drink.  Elsa waited patiently.  “Do you… do you think he’s done it before?  With other women, like she said?  Tavern wenches and the like?”

Elsa shrugged.  “I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t have.  Rock Trolls are reputed to have few inhibitions.  Since they raised Kristoff, I doubt he would’ve felt any hesitation about finding a woman to satisfy his needs when they… presented themselves.”

Blushing scarlet, Anna took another long drink of wine.  “I’m not sure if I hope you’re right, and that he will know how to do it so that it won’t hurt so much, or if I hope you’re wrong and I won’t be the only one that won’t really know what they’re doing.”

“It will be one or the other,” Elsa replied practically.  “Either way, you’ll be sharing that moment with a man that loves you above all others, Anna.  I’m sure there are plenty of women that don’t get to have that during their first time, soul-marked or not.”

Anna’s answering smile was tremulous, uncertain but willing to be reassured her elder sister in that moment.

Elsa just wished that someone could do the same for her.

*    *    *

The wedding celebration lasted all day and well into the night.  Even after the happy couple withdrew to Anna’s royal apartments, followed by a selection of Elsa’s ladies-in-waiting to witness the bedding from spy-holes in the servants’ corridor, the assorted guests and dignitaries continued to dance and dine and make merry for hours.

Elsa had retired shortly after her sister and Kristoff.  Having sent most of her ladies to attend her sister this night, only one accompanied her to the royal apartments, helping her to bathe and dress for bed with silent alacrity.  Mika was a shy girl, retiring by nature and rarely speaking outside of what was needful in her duties to her queen.  It was restful to be in her quiet, competent presence just now, and it let Elsa settle her mind for the first time in days.

“Will that be all this evening, your Majesty?” Mika asked softly, having brushed and re-braided Elsa’s long blonde hair.

“Yes, Mika.  Thank you.”  Mika curtseyed and turned to gather up Elsa’s clothes and underthings for laundering.  Elsa watched her in the mirror until she’d left with another brief curtsey, feeling resolve coalesce around her heart.

When she was sure that Mika had gone, Elsa wrapped up in her most voluminous cloak and slipped from her rooms.

Distracted by escorting drunk, exhausted nobles to their rooms and cleaning up from the wedding festivities, the servants took no notice of the dark-cloaked shadow that made its way through the castle.  Not that any of them would have gainsaid their queen’s going anywhere she wished, but Elsa was glad of it anyway.  Questions about her destination or intended activities would have been… awkward.  The fewer that knew, the better.

The tower was easy to infiltrate.  After all, rather than risk Hans subverting human guards, Elsa had created snow guards to prevent Hans’ escape.  A breath of magic turned them to statues of ice rather than moveable mounds of snow, unable to sense her presence or betray her secret.  She could restore them later, with no one the wiser.

Taking a breath for courage, Elsa removed the great beam that barred the door from the outside and opened it.

The room was softly lit from the banked fire on the hearth.  While she could station snow beasts to guard him, Hans still had to be attended to by human servants for meals and fires.  She had given firm instructions that no man should wait upon Hans more than twice in any given month, and even then the ‘honor’ tending his needs would be assigned by drawn lots, so that it would never be predictable.

She could not risk Hans suborning one of her subjects into helping him escape.  Not yet.  Not ever.

He was asleep on the bed, lying on his back and wearing only breeches and kid leather shoes.  For a moment, Elsa hesitated, then took a light step and closed the door behind herself.  The noise did not cause him to stir; the only sound in the room was a faint snore.  His mouth was slack, his handsome face peaceful; one hand draped off the edge of the bed, the other rested against his hip.

One careful step, then another, carried Elsa across the room to stand beside Hans’ unguarded body.  Unclasping her cloak, she let it slip to the floor as she gazed at his chest, her eyes fixed on the soulmark limned just above his heart.  Long moments slid by while she stared at it, memorizing every line and subtle grade of color.

Slowly, she stretched out one hand, letting her fingertips come to rest on the firm muscles of his chest.  He did not wake.  Did not even move.  Tense, prepared for anything, Elsa flattened her hand onto his skin and ran it down the planes of his body, coming to a halt just above the strained lacing of his breeches.

He did not stir.  He was deeply asleep and his manhood, mere inches from her hand, was rigid as a column.

Her instructions had been followed to the letter.  Now she had only to see this through.

Reaching out with her other hand, Elsa undid the lacing of his breeches with shaking fingers.  The full hardness beneath them pushed at the gap, but even with the opening, it was a brief struggle for Elsa to get the soft material tugged down past the sleeping man’s hips, exposing him completely to her gaze.

The midwife had been explicit on several points, but Elsa still felt her mouth go dry at the sight of a man's fully-erect privates for the first time in her young life.

Somewhere in the castle, far from here, men of varied rank were lifting the skirts of any woman willing to let them.  In the bedchamber of her royal apartments, Kristoff was lying between Anna’s legs, coaxing her to yield up her maidenhead with whispered endearments and tender kisses.  It all seemed very far away as Elsa took in the flared hood, the seeping tip, the slight curve even as it jutted up away from a nest of wiry red curls.  It was thick and long, intimidating and fascinating.

Hans was still asleep as Elsa let her silken nightgown slip from her shoulders and pool at her feet.  As she carefully lifted one leg and slid astride his body, as though he were a horse and she were daring to not ride side-saddle.

Women were made to accommodate such appendages.  She knew it, focused on it.  It would hurt, but it would fit, no matter how daunting it appeared.  The longer she waited, the greater the chance that her nerves would overwhelm her.  “You can do this, Elsa,” she told herself sternly.  “You planned this.  You are here.  You cannot turn back now.”

Lifting herself high on her knees, Elsa took hold of Hans’ erection.  It was warm, pulsing faintly with his sleeping heartbeat.  The skin of it was surprisingly soft for how solid it felt underneath.  Hans did not stir, not even as she moved up his body until her knees bracketed his torso.  Not as she reached down and spread the folds of her entrance, or when she fumbled awkwardly until she had brought the broad head of his manhood into alignment with her opening.

His eyelids did not so much as flutter as she pressed down, biting her lip at the way flesh chafed against flesh.  Determined, Elsa steeled herself and kept going, holding his shaft steady as she forced her body down towards his hips.

She inwardly quailed when the stretch became painful.  Only a few inches inside her and it was enough to make her whimper, wanting to lift up and clamber off and run from the room.  She could, a voice in the back of her mind told her.  It wasn’t too late to change her mind, and no one was making her do this but herself.  Anna could bear the children the kingdom needed.

Anna, who even now was likely sighing in the arms of her husband, her perfect, doting soulmate, legs wrapped around his waist as he thrust into her belly with increasing fervor and whispered how much he loved her in her ear.

Something ugly coiled in Elsa’s gut at the thought.  Without allowing herself another moment of doubt, she shifted her angle slightly and pushed down hard.

Pain tore through her; it drove a wounded cry from her lips before she could stifle it, though even that did not wake the prince beneath her from his drugged slumber.  Her hips were flush with his now, the heavy girth of him buried deeper than she’d ever imagined anything could be.  There was a warmth seeping from her body; a trickle of maiden blood leaking around his shaft.  Tears had spilled over at the corners of her eyes, and she could not stop them.

Giving herself a moment, and only a moment, Elsa forced herself to focus.  She could not afford to linger here indefinitely.  Bracing her hands on his chest, keeping her eyes open and trained on his face for the slightest trace of his waking, Elsa experimentally lifted her hips, then rode back down again.

It hurt.  She could feel every inch of him spearing through her as she moved.  Admonishing herself that it didn’t matter, that this was a means to an end, she did it again.  Again, lifting higher this time.  Again, and higher still.  The friction burned and her inner muscles felt stretched beyond bearing.  It took every ounce of her will to keep going, to find a rhythm, to focus on what the midwife had told her.

_There’s not a man alive that won’t spill his seed if if he’s rutting inside a nice tight hole.  Doesn’t matter if the woman’s willing or not.  Just dreaming about being between a woman’s legs is enough to make them spend and they don’t even know they’ve done it until they wake._

Beneath her, Hans began to groan when she pushed down towards his hips.  It would be soon; the midwife had warned her that men could reach their peak in just a few thrusts.  Elsa ignored the pain and kept moving, riding just a little faster, wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible…

She almost missed it, concentrating as hard as she was on getting him there.  But only a few strokes of her hips later and his manhood was jerking inside her, a wet heat gushing up into her womb.  It drove another whimper out of Elsa to feel it, to sink down onto Hans’ hips and rock back and forth, in the way the midwife had said helped encourage the flow of a man’s seed.

It didn't take long before the heat of his essence finished blurting into her.  For a few minutes, Elsa remained as she was, wanting nothing more than the throbbing pain in her belly to subside.  When it didn’t immediately, Elsa took a deep, resigned breath and pushed herself up one last time. His manhood, now soft from having spent its seed inside her, slithered from her channel with a soft plop against Hans’ stomach.  Elsa winced, a ragged breath escaping her as she eased herself down from his body.  Her feet hit the floor and she wobbled, then crumpled into an uncoordinated heap.

It jarred her body, exacerbating how much she hurt inside from what she had done.  It took enormous effort to keep from bursting into tears right here on the floor.  She had far too much to do yet to allow herself that.

Several deep breaths, and Elsa pushed herself to her feet.  Forced herself to stagger to the bedside table where there was an ewer of water and a cloth.  The water was cool against her abused core as she used the cloth to sponge away the blood and the first trickles of his seed seeping down her thigh. After cleansing Hans as best she could, Elsa tugged her nightgown and cloak back onto her body.  It took every reserve she had to keep from breaking down as she struggled Hans’ clothes back into place, lacing his breeches back up to conceal his now limp manhood.

For a moment, she lingered, willing herself to leave and take the cloth with her.  She could leave no evidence of what had transpired here.  Hans could have no idea that someone else had been in his room, or that his deep slumber was anything more than the effects of strongwine.  With a final glance at his soulmark, Elsa finally made herself leave.

Limping her way back to her apartments seemed to take twice as long as the trip to Hans’ tower.  Somehow, Elsa made it without detection, though it was pushing into the wee hours of dawn.  Slipping into her rooms, carefully replacing her cloak and shoes so as to not cause disquiet among her ladies, Elsa dragged herself into the great bed in which her parents had conceived she and her sister in a loving tangle of limbs.

Clutching one of her pillows to her aching belly, Elsa finally allowed her tears free reign, muffling her sobs in the bedclothes as she cried herself to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**~~~***~~~**

The next day, Elsa pled overindulgence from the previous evening and kept to her chambers for most of the morning.  The various visiting dignitaries could not be ignored indefinitely, but she was the queen; if she chose it, everything and everyone in the castle waited attendance on her. By luncheon, she was holding court as if nothing was unusual, hiding her discomfort behind polite smiles and light banter.

By the time her evening bath was prepared, though, Elsa sank into it with a gratitude she normally only felt when her monthly cramps were at their peak.  “I should have asked earlier, Britta,” she said before her maid could question her about it.  “Did everything go smoothly in Anna’s chambers last night?”

“Her Highness’ marriage has been fully consummated, your Majesty,” Britta replied carefully, taking her place behind Elsa to wash the young queen’s back.  “The bedsheets were presented to Lord Chancellor this morning.”

There was a careful quietness in Britta’s tone that made Elsa pause.  When Britta did not continue, she turned to look her maid in the eye.  “What, Britta?”

“It’s nothing of any importance, your Majesty,” Britta hedged.  When Elsa cocked an eyebrow and gave her maid a hard look, she caved.  “The Prince Consort is most… vigorous, your Grace, and he exerted his husbandly rights with a fervor that I fear your royal sister did not share when the time came.”

Elsa’s eyes narrowed at that.  Ice sheets began to form on the surface of the bath water.  “Did he force her, Britta?”

“No!” the maid replied quickly.  “Princess Anna was not unwilling, your Majesty; she had a bout of nerves at the critical moment, is all, and he was ill-disposed to be patient with her.”  At Elsa’s frown, Britta hesitated.  “She wouldn’t be the first woman whose husband was unwilling to delay after a certain point, your Grace.  Now that he’s rutted with her a few times, she knows what to expect and he’ll be more inclined to be patient with her.  It will work itself out, my Queen, and the princess knows her duties in the meantime.”

Turning back around, Elsa let Britta finish washing her back and fetch more warm water.  “A few times?” she finally echoed.

A moment passed as Britta sluiced warm water over her queen’s back.  “The Prince Consort exerted his rights four times before dawn, your Majesty.”

Elsa didn’t quite know how she felt about that.  On the one hand, if Anna’s discomfort in the aftermath was anything like her own, she felt a surge of defensiveness towards her sister that made her want to summon Kristoff and admonish him for being so selfish.  On the other, after everything Anna had let her suffer alone, there was a spiteful impulse to wash her hands of the matter and leave Anna to sort out the intricacies of marital relations on her own.

When she finally rose from the bath and stepped into the toweling that Britta held out for her, Elsa’s protective side won out.  “Tell the others, and Anna’s maid, to keep an eye on things,” she instructed as she walked to the chair near the hearth so that her hair could be brushed dry.  “If his ardor continues to outmatch his patience for more than a week, I will have words with him before they leave on their wedding trip.”

“Yes, your Majesty.”

*    *    *

On the day that her sister and new brother-in-law left for their wedding trip, which was doubling as a diplomatic tour of Misthaven’s royal houses, Elsa felt steady enough to go back.

Britta’s prediction had been correct:  while Kristoff remained as implacable about exerting his marital rights as any husband in his prime, he learned to tolerate Anna’s nerves in the marriage bed and work around them.  Anna was subdued as she hugged Elsa before boarding their ship, but Elsa was certain that was due more to the fact that the ship would be sailing the same route on which their parents had been lost at sea than anything else.

Kristoff was Anna’s soulmate.  It would work itself out eventually.  And no matter how rocky the start of their physical relationship had been, there was no less love in Anna’s eyes when she looked at her husband than there had been when she’d agreed to be his wife before all of Arendelle.

Most of the visiting dignitaries had left that day as well, the departure of the royal couple signalling an end to the festivities.  The flowery farewell speeches had left Elsa feeling irritable, like there was an itch under her skin that couldn’t be calmed, and she’d dismissed her maids almost peevishly the moment she could seclude herself in her chambers. Unable to settle down even in the quiet, it felt almost reckless to issue her instructions to the kitchen regarding Hans’ evening meal.  But after it was done, a queer sort of peace took over, and it was easier to fill the time until she could slip from her apartments without feeling so restive.

He was already sound asleep when she entered, this time sprawled face down with his legs hanging off the bed at his knees.  Elsa tried to breathe through the mild surge of panic as she sorted out how to roll him over without dumping him from the bed; she had more confidence in the strength of sleeping draught that had been mixed into his wine this night, but she doubted it would hold against an impact with the hard stone floor. The position she rolled him into made getting his breeches unlaced and out of her way easier than the last time, though.  She slipped off her gown and mounted his hips with less hesitation than before, but something stopped her even as the hard length of him pressed against her nether lips.

For a long moment, all Elsa could do was look at the man beneath her:  high brows and fine arching cheekbones, generous lips and aquiline nose.  The bright red of his hair was slightly lighter where it feathered across the ridge above his large green eyes, darker where it roughened into sideburns along the edge of his jaw. She wondered what it would be like if he were awake right now.  Would those eyes hold impatience or adoration?  Would that jaw be clenched in frustration, or would the faint stubble that shadowed it be scraping along her skin like a cat’s tongue while he kissed away her insecurities? Would he expect her to be meek and lie still beneath him while he took her?  Or would he let her learn his body’s secrets, finding with careful fingers the places that made him groan and stiffen until he was near to spilling from her touch alone?

Just the thought of it made something deep in her belly twinge; a tight pull that sharply reminded her why she was here.  With a deep breath to steel herself, Elsa lifted her hips and positioned his erection at her entrance, slowly seating his length inside her. It was still uncomfortable to accommodate his girth, but not quite so much as before.  Closing her eyes, Elsa found the rhythm she could bear and rode him, trying to think about anything but how cold it felt inside her heart.  How empty it was to have him this way.

Just like the first time, it didn’t take long before his seed was blurting into her, a warm rush against her womb that made Elsa want to hurl things in frustration.  She would give anything for that feeling to be accompanied by gentle kisses, to be followed by him smiling at her in lazy satisfaction even as he slid out of her body and gathered her into those muscled arms.

The child that his seed would eventually plant in her womb would be beautiful; she knew it even as she pushed herself free of his body and cleaned away the evidence.  Could almost picture the little prince or princess they would create as she tugged his breeches back into place and laced them closed.  A child of fire and ice, who would one day rule Arendelle with wisdom and grace.

Hans would probably hear the ring of its laughter in the courtyards below as it grew up, never knowing that he had helped create it.

Touching the mark he bore was too risky.  It would react to her, possibly even penetrate the effects of the sleeping potion and wake him before she could escape and bar the door.  But she couldn’t help the way her fingers traced the skin of his chest just beyond the edges of the golden Arendelle tulip that sprang from a silvery snowdrift.

The way her internal muscles protested the use to which she’d put them was nothing compared to the pain of only having her soulmate in body, and even that a half-measure.  Of knowing what she would never have and wanting it anyway. But wishing didn’t make anything so, else mermaids would have been miraculously rescued her parents from their sinking ship and Hans would have courted her instead of trying to kill her.  And so she left his tower cell, twin aches between her legs and in her heart as she sought the cold comfort of her empty bed.

*    *    *

Strangely, life while Anna was away on her wedding trip was very much akin to the interminable months between their parents’ death and Elsa’s ascendancy. The only real difference was that this time, there was a very real chance that she would be pregnant when Anna came back into her life.

The Lord Chancellor and the late king had known one another since boyhood, and as regent for the orphaned Crown Princess, he had kept her as actively involved in the governance of the realm as possible. In addition to finishing her education in the intricacies of ruling and keeping her abreast of the matters that would become her responsibility as queen, it had kept Elsa’s mind occupied, never allowing her to wallow in melancholy or loneliness for too long.  After losing control over her powers had nearly cost both her kingdom and her life, Elsa had finally understood the more subtle lesson he’d tried to impart:  a monarch’s personal turmoil should never be allowed to interfere with their responsibility to their citizens.

She didn’t dare to visit Hans’ tower more than twice in any se’ennight for fear of discovery or gossip among the servants. It would cause enough of an uproar when she turned up heavy with child and with not even an official consort in evidence. Even thinking about how she would explain any of it to her closest advisors when it could no longer be hidden made her quail inside. Most of the populace was unlikely to ever understand, especially since it would be impossible to announce that Hans was her soulmate without his family in the Southern Isles trying to turn that information to their advantage.

If her trysts were discovered before she was impregnated, her counselors would do everything they could to preserve the fragile political peace. Which meant doing all in their power to prevent her from being able to see him alone ever again, soulmarks be damned. If she was going to have anything of Hans at all, Elsa knew she had to keep her visits to Hans' tower both unpredictable and as few as possible.

But there were times in the dark when she wished… oh, how she wished she could have more.  When the connection between them painted fantasies of what his kisses would feel like on her skin, or for those broad palms and long fingers to frame her hips while he thrust with lazy passion into her body. What it would be like for him to make her want the thick fullness of him inside her.  To hear the soft endearments and encouragement he would whisper as they moved together, instead of the faint crackle on the hearth and the near-silence of his breath while her almost-dry sheath struggled around the burden of him.

Part of her longed to wind her way up the stairs every night.  To push the bounds she’d set and see how often she could have the tiny sliver of him she had allowed herself before things spun beyond her control.  To fling aside all consideration or caution and satisfy her own needs without caring how it would look to anyone else.

She was so heartily sick of hiding herself away in the shadows for the good of her people.

He was on the low divan by the hearth tonight, a book having dropped from his hands and tumbled spine-up to the floor.  Elsa nudged it further under the edge and away from the fire as she studied his position, trying to determine how they would fit together this time.  Luck had been on her side for the last several visits in that he’d stumbled to the bed before the potion had taken full effect, but that she’d known that streak couldn’t have held forever.

It wasn’t until she’d gotten him unlaced and slipped her gown from her shoulders that she had the faintest frisson of foreboding.  A whisper in her veins that something wasn’t right.

Except he was as erect as he always was.  His breath even and peaceful, his features slack from repose.  There was no one else in the room and nothing about Hans that suggested anything different from the previous visits she’d paid him.  She shrugged it off with a shake of her head.  “Stop being a goose,” she muttered to herself, sliding one leg across his hips and getting into position atop him.

Her nether lips had barely brushed across the hard heat of him when hands suddenly grabbed onto her hips.  Elsa heard her gasp of shock echo in the room as those green eyes snapped open, no trace of sleep marring the way anger morphed into unmitigated shock at seeing her face above his.  “ _Elsa?!_ ”

In an instant, Elsa shoved herself free of his surprise-slack grasp, one hand snatching up her gown and cloak as he tried to find his footing.  He was calling her name, but she didn’t waste breath answering; a hedgerow of icicles blasting into the space between them as she reached the door. The last glimpse of him she caught as she slid through and slammed the heavy door closed was of Hans standing behind the melting ice in confusion, firelight glinting off the soulmark over his breastbone.

Barring the door, Elsa sagged against it, heart pounding in her chest and breath shivering out of her lungs.  Clouds of ice puffed out with every exhalation and she was shaking violently as she tried to pull on her gown, knowing that she couldn’t leave the tower until she did. On the other side of the door, Hans had made it past the ice and was hammering on the thick wood with both fists, shouting her name and demanding she come back to face him.  Tears welled in her eyes even as she fumbled with the catch on her cloak, and it took everything she had to make it down the steps without stumbling.

Even with all her precautions, something had given her away.  Something that had made him suspect, and not drink the potion-laced wine served with his evening meal.  Something that had led him to lay a trap, though he’d clearly never expected that she would be the one he caught.

It wasn’t until she was back in her room that the tears started in earnest, and then she was curling up in her bed and sobbing brokenly into her pillow, grieving the loss of what little she’d been able to have of the man that should have loved her.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this has taken so long to update. Have some smut as compensation. ~_^

**~~~***~~~**

The following morning, the Captain of the Guard informed Elsa that Hans had requested a private audience with her through the scullion that had brought his morning meal.  A stalwart man in his late forties, he was visibly shocked only for a moment when his young queen granted it, but quickly covered it and moved to make the appropriate preparations.

Elsa was grateful for the lack of commentary; her own reservations were gnawing at her quite fiercely enough without adding in anyone else’s.  But there was no help for it.  If she was going to contain this disaster, she would need to manage this now.  And that meant somehow securing Hans’ silence about her midnight visits.  She couldn’t do that if she hid from him for the rest of her natural life.

Even if that sounded terribly appealing to the part of her that still wanted to die of embarrassment at having being caught.

After the evening meal, when the castle was quiet and few would notice what was happening, Hans was escorted into her private solar by two guardsmen.  By Elsa’s order, he was unchained and had been searched twice for weapons before being allowed into her rooms.  At her nod from where she was seated, the guardsmen left.

Hans’ eyes never left her from the moment he entered the room, his expression trying for neutral but lined with barely-constrained fury.  Those green eyes were hard as agates as they bored into her, as if trying to learn the truth without needing a word to be spoken between them. It took every fiber of Elsa’s being to remain where she was, composed and seated across the room from him.  Seeing him awake, vibrant and warm and standing right there, made her whole body itch to close the distance between them.  To touch him and feel him respond, to see or hear a reaction that wasn’t stifled by slumber.

To have him touch her back and know that she was forgiven.

Before she could open her mouth to try for a civil greeting, Hans finally couldn’t hold back any longer.  “If your sole purpose in keeping me alive was to use me for your pleasure, Majesty, I’d like to request a short date for execution.”

Any tenderness their attachment had fostered inside her seemed to shatter at the words.  She drew herself up, refusing to let him see how much he was hurting her even now.  “My purpose in keeping you alive is as surety against further hostility from your family, your kingdom and its allies, your Highness.  Any access that grants me to your person is at best a marginal perquisite which can easily be done without.”

Hans’ nostrils flared, his anger getting harder to disguise.  “And yet you’ve visited me at least eight times in the past six weeks, if I count back the number of nights I’ve blacked out from ‘strongwine’ and woken to the scent of my own seed with none in evidence.”

Elsa refused to blush or look dismayed, despite the fact that he was clearly gauging her reaction.  She hadn’t realized it would leave a scent that strong behind.

When she didn’t answer, he took a step towards her.  “I think you owe me an explanation, Elsa.”

“And I think you’ll find that I don’t care what you think, Hans.”  Elsa’s voice was as cool as the magic brewing at her fingertips.  “The only reason I haven’t had you executed for your crimes is because it serves the people of Arendelle for me to spare your life.  You have no rights:  in this matter or any other in my realm.”

“If you’ll recall,” Hans snarled, taking another step in her direction, “I once had you as my prisoner, and I left you to your confinement unmolested. I find it hard that you not only couldn’t do me the same courtesy, but that you haven’t even the decency to tell me _why_ you saw fit to drug and assault me.”

That put Elsa on her feet, her own anger over his betrayal roaring back to the surface.  “So I should be _grateful_ that you didn’t rape me in the midst of trying to take control of my kingdom?”

“What you should be is ashamed of yourself!” he retorted hotly.  “You couldn’t find anyone man enough to satisfy your lusts, so you order me sedated and use me in my sleep.  I can’t decide if that’s the most licentious act any queen’s ever committed, or if you’re only just as much of a whore as Regina of Misthaven.”

Ice crackled in the air, frosting over the windows.  “I am no whore,” Elsa replied, her voice taut with rage.  “And you will mind what you say in my presence, Hans, or that tower cell is going to seem luxurious compared to where I’ll keep you from now on.”

“What does the comfort of your stud matter to you?” Hans sneered.  “And you expect me to believe you’re not a whore when you were climbing astride me, naked and wanton as you please?  How many other men did you try before you decided you liked us unconscious?”

“None.”

Hans scoffed.  “You really expect me to believe that?”

“It doesn’t matter to me what you believe,” Elsa informed him coolly.  “I was a virgin when I first came to your rooms.  If you cannot bring yourself to believe the truth when it is spoken to you, that’s not my problem.”

For a moment, Hans looked like he wanted to argue the point.  Something in her expression must have sunk in, though, because he stopped when he was almost about to speak, and his expression grew visibly shaken.  “Why would you do that?” he almost whispered.

“That’s none of your concern.”  Elsa tried to keep her expression even, hoped he couldn’t see how much he was affecting her.  How much she wanted to beg his forgiveness and convince him to show her what it could have been like between them if he hadn’t conspired to kill her and steal her throne.  “Just know that it won’t be happening again.”

“That’s not good enough.”  Hans took another step towards her, shaking his head.

“It has to be.”

“If you won’t tell me why, how can I trust that you’ll keep your word?”  Elsa shrugged and Hans’ hands knotted into fists.  “You owe me the truth!”

“After what you did,” Elsa snarled, “I owe you nothing.”

“Tell me why!” he demanded again.

Enough was enough.  It was time to own up to everything; to let him understand the enormity of his crime and the rationale behind her own.

Calmly, Elsa reached up and unlaced the front of her dress.  She held his eyes the entire time, watching the flashing fire of them, until the material could part enough to expose the skin above her breastbone.  For a moment, Hans almost didn’t register what she was showing him.  When it sank in, all he could do was stare.  “Elsa…”

“Do not.”  Elsa’s voice was the howl of winter over mountain rocks.

“I didn’t know-”

“Do you think that changes it?”  Elsa wanted to forgive him.  The forest-green lines of his personal crest that were limned into her skin throbbed, aching for his touch.  “Do you imagine for even a moment that I can ever forgive you for what you’ve done?”

Breathing felt impossible.  Hans stumbled forward, dropping to his knees at her feet.  “Elsa-”

“Your Majesty,” she cut in harshly.  “You have no right to be so familiar with me.”

“Familiar?” Hans exploded.  “You’ve drugged me into a stupor and fucked me while I slept!”

“And I hate it!”  She backed away as he pushed to his feet; he followed, furious and desperate and heartbroken.  Ice sprang up in her wake like clusters of weeds, Hans’ steps smashing them to glittering shards as he kept pace with her retreat.  “But you’ve left me no choice!”

“You could have told me!”

Hans stumbled, slipped, scrambled.  Elsa was lithe and quick, but she misgauged his direction and stepped into his path instead of avoiding it.  He caught her arms and she reacted on instinct; frigid air blasted him back, slamming him into the wall with stunning force.  Hans dropped to the floor in a heap, breathing hard, tears burning his frost-bitten cheeks as they leaked from his eyes.

He had lost everything.  In a reckless bid to prove his worth to a family that only esteemed cunning and power, he had destroyed the one thing he’d given up hope of ever finding before he’d even known it was within his grasp.

Elsa wanted to stay removed from him.  To call for her guards and have him taken back to his tower cell.  She wanted to hate him.  To be as unrelenting in her anger as Anna was.  But she understood him, too.  Better now that she had met his family.  She understood why he’d tried to seize control of their kingdom rather than being content to marry into it. It changed nothing, and everything.

Before she knew she was doing it, Elsa had crossed the distance between them and knelt, reaching out to rest a hand on his knee.  Hans’ eyes opened, meeting her own, and Elsa felt her soulmark throb in sympathy for the anguish she saw in him.  “Hans…”

“Why?  I know that I’ve destroyed us, but you still...”  He broke off, swallowed hard, then started again.  “Why drug me so that I wouldn’t know?”

“I…”  In that moment, she wanted to tell him that it was only about getting an heir.  That he really was nothing more than a stud, a means to conceive a child of blood royal, and that she would leave him to rot when she had what she needed from him without a backwards glance.

But deep down, no matter what he’d done, he was her soulmate.  The one person that was supposed to love her above anyone else.  And she could not ignore what he made her want, no matter how impossible it was.

He saw her hesitation; something uncurled in his posture, and he reached up to cover her hand with his own.  “It’s all right… you don’t need to say it.  I understand.  Gods know it would be politically catastrophic for you to pardon me and keep me as your consort or husband, even with our soulmarks.”  Swallowing again, Hans met her eyes, the forest green of his own dark with conflicted emotions.  “Use me if that’s all I can be for you.  I’ll accept that.  Just… please, Elsa… let me be awake.  Let me see you find some pleasure in me.  Please.”

“There's been no pleasure to see,” Elsa snapped, her voice quiet and bitter.  “I get nothing from it but pain and your seed.”

Hans’ expression grew stricken.  Before Elsa could stop him, he uncurled and slid his arms around her, dragging her into his lap.  She let out a cry of protest that was muffled as his lips descended across her mouth.

Warm.  He was so warm against her skin, his mouth moving over hers with urgent intent.  The arms around her torso trapped her, cradled her, shielded her.  Before she knew it, her arms had slipped around his neck and she was moaning into his mouth as she kissed him back, fire igniting between them and burning everything else away.

“Elsa…”  Hans was pushing to his feet, kissing her as if he might die for need of her.  “Let me… gods, please let me…”

“Hans…”  She clung to his shoulders, his hands bracing over her buttocks as he bore them into her bedchamber.  It was stupid.  It was reckless.  He could try to kill her again…

But his lips were gentle along her throat, his hands reverent as they widened the opening in the lacing of her gown and urged it from her shoulders.  She blushed crimson even as she lifted her arms out of the sleeves, baring her to the waist to his gaze.

Because he _was_ looking.  Just standing there not doing anything but looking at her with deep green eyes that seemed bright even in the shadows, that took in every line of her body so slowly that it was practically a caress. “You’re staring,” she accused, fighting the urge to cover herself again.

“You’re beautiful.”  The words left him in a breath, deepening her flush even as he reached for her.  His hands were huge and hot against her bare skin, and Elsa moaned at the way it radiated through her body as he drew her in for another kiss.  Her fingers wrapped into the delicate lawn of his shirt, letting her cling to him as he pushed her gown past her waist and let it puddle at her feet.

His lips were gentler on hers this time, exerting a soft, insistent pressure until her mouth opened beneath his.  She gasped into the kiss and he swallowed the sound, learning the taste of her and coaxing her to sample him in return.  The first tentative curl of her tongue past his lips made him groan, low and heartfelt, and Elsa’s arms slid up around his neck even as his palms curved around her backside and lifted her off her feet.

It was the most natural thing in the world to wrap her legs around his tapered waist, to twine her fingers into his bright red hair as she nipped at his lower lip.  His breath caught on another groan and she couldn’t help grinning at the sound, something that might have been joy bubbling up inside her.

“Keep doing things like that, your Majesty,” Hans managed, “and this may be over before we even make it into bed.”

One blonde brow arched, and then Elsa was kissing the underside of his jaw, her teeth pinching into the delicate skin.  Hans’ body shuddered in her grip.  “You are absolutely forbidden to finish without at least being naked, your Highness,” she teased into his ear, breathless from her own daring.

Without warning, Elsa was dropped onto the feather mattress of her great bed.  Hans stepped back with an arch expression of his own and ignoring the outraged sound she made.  “Far be it from me to disobey a royal decree.”

The entirely suitable retort that sprang to her lips died there as Hans unlaced his shirt and hauled it up over his head.  All she could do was stare as he cast it aside, watching with unfeigned fascination at the way his muscles moved beneath his skin, even as his hands dropped to the lacing of his breeches.  The leather house shoes he’d been restricted to wearing since his imprisonment were easily toed off as he peeled his breeches down to his ankles, never taking his eyes from her as he stepped clear of both.

The sight of him, awake and aroused, all long limbs and lean muscle, made Elsa’s mouth go dry.  A mixture of want and fear churned in her stomach until she felt almost sick with it, her breath shallow as her eyes tracked his slow advance towards the bed she was perched on.  She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his groin, from the way his manhood bobbed and his thighs flexed with every step.

She knew how it felt to have him inside her.  Knew only too well the discomfort it left her in.  Would it be any different because she was awake?  Or would the difference only be that she wouldn’t be alone when it was over?

“Elsa?”

Her eyes jerked up at the sound of her name to find Hans gazing down at her.  Worry pinched his features, and Elsa was so surprised to see it that she couldn’t help wanting to reach up and smooth it away.  It looked wrong on his face, in the shadows of the room he should be living in with her as her husband.

She rose up on her knees, her delicate hands reaching up to cradle his jaw.  Hans’ eyes shuttered at her touch.  “I didn’t know,” he pleaded softly.

“That doesn’t make it all right,” she answered.

His eyes opened, his lashes wet with tears.  “I know that.”  His hands came up to cover hers even as he turned his head, pressing a kiss to one palm and then the other.  “But I swear on my life:  I will never hurt you again.”

Elsa’s breath stuttered in her chest as he looked back up at her.  “Prove it,” she whispered.

His lips found hers as his arms wrapped around her, and then the world was tilting as he bore her down onto the mattress.  Her legs parted almost on instinct, wanting his weight against her sex.  Wanting what should have been theirs from the start.

Except that weight only made her ache, the pull in her womb that came over her when she fantasized about this moment sharper than ever and getting worse with every tender stroke of his fingers over her skin.  His mouth drifted away from her own, trailing heated kisses along her throat even as his thumbs brushed across the hardened pebbles of her nipples.  A twinge of bright heat twisted its way from her breasts to the hollow between her legs and her hips arched up, seeking the hard line of his arousal in formless invitation.

“Soon,” Hans murmured, a promise against the curve of her breast before his mouth captured the soft peak.  Elsa’s fingers threaded into his hair as a mangled moan seemed to roll up into her throat from her toes, tugging at his scalp with an intent she couldn’t name.  His hands still cupped and stroked and brushed over her body with a tenderness that should have been impossible… was everything she’d never allowed herself to believe she could have from him…

A sob escaped her as his lips found the soulmark limned into the skin above her breastbone, a kiss that felt like a promise pressed into the very heart of it.

Wrapping her legs around his waist, Elsa ground up against him even as his mouth moved to seal across her opposite breast.  She barely noticed the way her entrance slid against his length more easily now, her channel slick and leaking from want.  Hans groaned around the nipple he laved even as his teeth gently bit down, dragging a shrieky gasp from Elsa even as his hand slid between their bodies and two thick fingers slipped into her core.

“Gods, you’re wet.”  His head lifted even as he said it, the words awestruck as he searched her face.  Her fingernails dug into his shoulders even as he pressed them deeper, watching for any flash of pain across her features.  “Am I dreaming this?  Are you really this wet for me?”

“Hans, please…”  Elsa whined as his fingers twisted, gliding pressure along her inner walls that wasn’t anywhere close to enough.  She needed more… needed the thick, hot length of him in a way she’d never thought possible... 

“Soon,” he promised again.  Elsa keened in frustration even as he scissored his fingers and worked them deeper still… hooking them just a little…

A star burst behind her eyes when he found what he’d been looking for.  Elsa shouted his name, heedless of the guards that might come bursting into the room at the sound, her hips riding helplessly against his fingers as they rubbed over the place he’d found inside her… as his thumb braced against the peak of her slit, the pressure somehow making everything even more intense… building and building like the magic she’d suppressed for so long until she was ready to explode…

His lips brushed her ear, the hand not half-buried inside her gliding up to cradle the small of her back.  “Come for me… my Queen…”

Almost on command, the pleasure he’d been building inside her exploded, her body shuddering and writhing in his grip as wave after wave crested through her and she cried out her pleasure for half the castle to hear.

When it finally subsided, Elsa could feel the taut restraint in Hans’ arms, still wrapped around her as if to protect her from the pleasure he’d unleashed inside her skin.  He was still hot and heavy between her legs, but when she opened her eyes, Hans was still watching her face.  Watching her recover from the gift he had given her. It reminded her of the strange compassion that had somehow clung to his features even when he’d been conspiring for her throne.  Even then, the bond bound into their soulmarks had drawn at them both, working against the machinations that had driven him to try and kill both her and her sister.

This had been a long time coming between them.

Reaching up, Elsa’s fingers traced the lines his concern had drawn along the edges of his face; his eyes fluttered closed at it, something like pain twisting through him and reminding Elsa that she wasn’t the only one suffering because of what had passed between them at her coronation.  That his connection to her was just as broken as hers to him; that he might need this just as badly as she did.

Hans’ eyes flew back open even as she leaned up to brush her lips over his own, staring at her in something like shock.  The smile she gave him in response was gentle, a little shy, coaxing one from him that was like the sun breaking over the mountains.  “Please, Hans,” she asked again.

His mouth descended even as his arms tightened, all but crushing her against him as he kissed her, the hunger in him dizzying enough to steal the breath from her lungs.  She clung back, his ferocity feeding her own, the feel of his hands as they found her thighs barely registering even as he urged them high, the crooks of her knees caught around his arms when he braced his hands on the bed beneath them.  Only when the broad head of his manhood firmly wedged against her did Elsa surface from the dizzying distraction of his kiss to realize that he had her pinioned, spread wide and vulnerable.

One hard thrust and he was buried to the root inside her.

The shock of it drove a cry from her lungs.  There was no pain; he’d made her slick and wanton and her body opened for him more easily than she could’ve imagined.  But the fullness of him inside her, the hard ridge of him drawing out and then driving back in just as hard, was so unexpected that Elsa could barely breathe.

She couldn’t even reach him now, not really.  He was braced above her, his hips settling into a rhythm and beginning to pound into her in earnest and all Elsa could do was lie beneath him and take it…

It was nothing like when she’d broken her maidenhead on his sleeping form.  Nothing like the silent rides she’d taken using his body since.  There was no timidity in Hans’ thrusts as there had been in her own tentative undulations.  Every stroke of his hips drove him deeper than she’d thought possible, the heavy purse of his seed slapping against her buttocks as the head hammered against the mouth of her womb, claiming her body with force enough that the great bed shuddered and scuffed against the wall behind them.

“Hans…”  Desperate to anchor herself, Elsa shifted beneath him, a gasping cry punching out as it let him drive just that much deeper.  Her arms scrabbled for a hold on him, her fingernails digging into the corded muscles of his arms.  “Hans, please… I need…”

“I know what you need.”  It was a snarl, deep and possessive, and it sent a thrill curling down through to her womb even as he shifted her legs up onto his shoulders and took hold of her hips in those broad, warm hands.

It was impossible to not cry out, moaning and panting as the change in position made him feel somehow thicker inside her, let him piston deeper and harder, and with every drive he was touching that place he’d found that set off stars under her skin and set her womb aching, grunting with the force of his own thrusts, hammering into her faster and harder until Elsa was sure she’d never walk properly again but she didn’t care… she didn’t care if she never left the bed again as long as he…

His hips stuttered against her own, a guttural shout of her name strangling past his lips a heartbeat before she felt the heat of him begin to pump inside her.  Not some meager blurting, as had come from his unconscious body.  Elsa could feel it pouring into her, washing up into her womb in heavy gouts that pulsed out of his manhood while he trembled above her, his head hanging low and his breath heaving in warm gusts against the skin of her knees.

Finally, slowly, the flow of his seed ebbed to a trickle.  Gingerly, more careful of her than Elsa might have expected, Hans shifted her legs down from his shoulders and eased them apart, splaying her wide beneath his weight.  Elsa mewled as Hans gently withdrew from her body, his manhood soft against his thigh. She could feel the sticky warmth of his seed and her own slick between her thighs, though most of his release was trapped in her womb where it belonged.

“Are you all right?”

The question made her open her eyes; he was gazing down at her with a mixture of concern and a strange reserve, as if he was mentally preparing even now to be removed from her rooms and taken back to his cell now that he’d fucked her properly.

The very idea of him leaving her side at the moment, or ever again, made Elsa want to cry.

“I’m fine,” she assured him.  “That was… very different from…”

“Riding me like a stud while I’m drugged insensible?”  Tears did spring to her eyes this time, and Hans’ expression instantly twisted with contrition.  “I’m sorry… it’s not something to joke about; you’re right.  I just…”

Words failed them both.  With a helpless sigh, Hans curled his arms around Elsa and rolled them onto their sides, keeping her tucked close against his body as she began to cry.

It was a long time before her tears ran dry, and despite all of the warnings she would’ve been given by anyone that it was foolish and dangerous to do so, Elsa let herself drowse in their aftermath, lulled into sleep by the heartbeat of her soulmate drumming steadily beneath her ear.


	5. Chapter 5

**~~~***~~~**

The sensation of thick, hard heat pushing into her body woke Elsa with a start. A gasp left her, drifting into a moan as Hans sank slowly to the hilt, his hands drawing her legs up to wrap around his waist and a groan of his own rumbling in his chest.

It was still dark; how much time she’d lost in sleep, she couldn’t say. It didn’t matter in the slightest as his corded arms gathered around her, cradling her close as his lips descended to brush almost chastely against her own: a contrast to the intimate invasion between her legs so lurid that it drove a tiny, wanton cry from her throat and made her mouth chase his, trying to deepen the contact between them.

“Thank the gods.” It sounded torn out of him, his hips undulating shallowly against hers as if he couldn’t keep still when he was inside her. “It wasn’t a dream…”

Elsa could only moan in response, clinging as the stroke of his hips lengthened, deepened with every push. Deliberate thrusts that sank to her very core, prodding the entrance of her womb and breaking tiny cries onto the end of her every breath. Slow at first, building momentum until he was pounding into her with enough force to rattle her bones, her nipples brushing against his chest as they bounced from the impact.

His body was a furnace, surrounding her with heat, and she tightened her legs even as she gave herself up to the consuming possession of it, her head falling back into the pillows. The surrender in it made him snarl, and then his hands were braced beneath her and he was hammering into her as if to split her in two, and Elsa was crying out, gasping her pleasure with every stroke as Hans let go what little restraint he’d been managing.

A guttural, triumphant sound rolled in his throat as his climax hit, his hips stuttering against hers before going still snugly against her own. Elsa almost sobbed at the feel of potent heat flooding into her womb, still amazed at how much more there was than she’d ever been able to coax from his unconscious body.

Long moments passed as he emptied himself inside her, their breath heaving in unison. Elsa’s legs trembled almost as much as Hans’ arms, and he made a softly wounded sound when the fingers of her right hand twined up to stroke through his thick auburn hair. “You didn’t… you didn’t come.”

There was a pained edge in the words she couldn’t ignore. Though her eyes felt heavy as the castle gates, Elsa opened them enough to see his expression in the pale shadows of moonlight, upset and oddly contrite. “Was I supposed to?”

“That’s sort of the point of the entire business.” Slowly, Hans shifted his weight until he could brush a stray lock of Elsa’s sweat-damp hair from her face, his limp manhood slipping out of Elsa’s body.

“Other than it being the only means of siring children,” Elsa pointed out.

The moment the words left her mouth, something in Hans’ face shuttered. “Of course,” he replied, his tone forced to mildness. “Obviously, there’s that.”

An unpleasant knot began to curl in Elsa’s chest, sending her hands reaching up to his shoulders to try and draw him back down to her. “Hans…”

A flash of heat was her only warning before his mouth was on hers, slashing across her lips in a claiming kiss that left her senses reeling. Both of his hands found her breasts, thumbing across the nipples until they were hard and aching and every flicker of touch sent twinges of lightning to her core. She moaned into his mouth and his tongue drove past her lips in decadent, possessive swipes, his rapidly-filling erection grinding against the soft folds between her legs. Her entire body was aflame as his hands glided down, each wrapping around one of her thighs and urging her legs high around his waist again and then he was driving back in, her nails biting into his shoulders as his mouth broke with hers to find the curve of her neck.

“I know what you need,” he growled, low and almost angry in her ear as his hips set a punishing pace, thick heat pistoning inside her with an urgency Elsa only belatedly understood. By then all she could do was cry out with every hammer stroke into her body: panting gasps that pleaded for more, urging his ferocity on until every pounding thrust left her breathless, pressure coiling in her belly like a spring…

It struck without warning, her climax breaking over her senses and driving a sobbing scream from her lips. Her muscles fluttered and gripped at the thick heat of him still thrusting inside her, slamming against the gates of her womb over and over and Elsa cried out with every stroke, clinging to him with arms and legs as the bed creaked beneath them.

“Come on, your Majesty.” The strain of his body’s rhythm resounded in each word, but Elsa could hear the anger in them; the disdain and the distance. “Come on my cock again… come on… I know what you need…”

“You.” The word blurted past Elsa’s teeth on the end of a high gasp. She saw it strike him like a blow, felt his rhythm falter inside her as his eyes widened in recognition. “Hans, please… I need you…”

A shudder went through him at the words. Elsa saw it, wanted to reach up and comfort him…

And then he was pulling out and pushing free of her body’s grip. Elsa let out a sharp sound of protest, afraid that he was going to leave her wanting, but before she could voice it his hands were on her again and Elsa found herself flipped over onto her stomach, his hands framing her hips and hauling them up into the air until she was on her knees. His name made it past her lips, the start of a demand to know what he was doing, but then his knees were braced inside hers and he was mounting her, the thick hardness of him driving back into her weeping core.

Elsa shrieked into the pillows as the position let him take her even harder than before, his skin slapping obscenely against hers and yet somehow only making her more desperate. One of his hands slid down along the curve of her hip, his fingers seeking the pearl between her folds, and Elsa sobbed when he found it, the way he stroked it making the ache in her womb almost unbearable. “Hans, please… please…”

“Come on, Elsa,” he urged again, his voice thready rather than angry this time. “Come for me again…”

Elsa panted, gasping for the air to protest that she couldn’t, didn’t know how. The words came out as formless cries, tributes to the wild heat he sent thrumming through her… and then his fingers pressed down that much harder as they worked the nub between her thighs and the mounting pressure inside her broke, her vision washing out white as she screamed her pleasure into the pillows.

This time, Hans couldn’t hold out. A handful of thrusts was all he lasted before the tight clutch of her fluttering muscles undid him, and he groaned her name as he buried himself to the hilt and poured heat into her womb.

For a long moment, they lingered that way, her inner muscles spasming for what seemed like ages and milking him for every drop of seed they could coax from him. By the time he had nothing left and was easing back out of her, Elsa could feel the tears on her cheeks, though she didn’t know why she was crying until he’d given her enough space to slump over onto her side. But by then, it didn’t matter why. Because the moment he saw the tears on her face, Hans was beside her and curling her into his arms, cocooning her in the warmth of his body and letting her tears run their course all over again.

This time, however, she didn’t fall asleep. They drifted in silence for a long while, both aware that the other was still awake and each listening to the sound of the other’s breathing. “I’m sorry,” he told her after what felt like hours. “This isn’t how I imagined the first night I’d spend in my soulmate’s arms, either. I’m so sorry, Elsa.”

Slowly, Elsa pushed herself up until she could look him in the eye. “I’m sorry, too… I shouldn’t have had you drugged so that I could come and…” She broke off, blushing as she tried to frame the words she wanted. It took a long time before she found them, but mercifully, this time, he let her instead of supplying them himself. “I took what I thought I could live with having from you without your consent. If I were the man and you a woman, people would say I raped you.”

“Well, I’m not a woman, so I’d prefer not to think of it that way,” Hans replied, his expression uncomfortable.

Elsa sat up with a sigh, her face twisting briefly at the twinge of her inner muscles. She’d begged for the things he’d done to her… _with_ her… but being ravished three times in one night was more than she was used to. “We don’t seem to be able to do much beyond hurting each other, do we?”

“That, and have quite the best sex I’ve ever experienced.” It made her blush harder and Hans chuckled, sitting up and reaching out to cup her cheek. “Maybe we can work on the first part, somehow.”

One of Elsa’s hands came up to cover his, though she did nothing to remove it. “You’re still my hostage,” she reminded him. “That can never change, Hans: not if Arendelle is going to survive.”

“I know.” His hand slid up to brush an errant lock of hair behind her ear, then trailed down her shoulder and found her hand again where it had come to rest on her thigh. “But that’s of my own making, so there’s little point resenting it. But I’m willing to try, however we have to work it out, if you are.”

It made something glow in Elsa’s chest to hear it, nestling in under her soulmark and pulsing with happiness. But there was one question she still needed answered. “Do you still think my magic makes me a monster?”

Hans was still for a long moment, gazing down at their joined hands as he searched for the words he wanted. “I don’t understand it,” he confessed. “It frightens me, the things you can do. What you could do with it if provoked. But a monster…” He finally looked up at her, his eyes pleading for understanding. “You’re my soulmate… so if you’re a monster, then I must be, too. And what I did to you and your sister… I let myself become one. So maybe we are both monsters, except that’s not who we want to be… so maybe, together, we can be something else instead.”

It wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear, but after everything she’d done, it wasn’t an unfair answer, either. They were evenly matched, that was sure enough, in their capacity to harm others when they themselves were in pain. “Maybe,” she replied simply, tightening her grip on his hand.

They used the water in the ewer on her nightstand to clean themselves; Hans put his breeches back on while Elsa found a shift, and was about to put his shirt and shoes back on when Elsa’s hand slid over his wrist. He looked at her in surprise to find her looking almost nervous. “Stay,” she asked him softly. “Please… the guards can escort you back after sunrise.”

A smile that was almost grateful curled across his face, and then he was letting her draw him back into the bed and curling up around her like they would do it every night of their lives from here on out, and Hans let himself fall back to sleep with the echo of her contented sigh gliding into his dreams.

* * *

“Your Majesty? Lord Graveseley requests a private audience.”

Elsa looked up at her usher in surprise. While it wasn’t unusual for her highest advisor to need to speak with her unexpectedly, it was rare that he would request that her ladies-in-waiting not be in attendance. “Of course; show him in.” With a gesture, Elsa dismissed her ladies, who had been embroidering nearby while she read her reports, and stood to greet her Lord Chancellor. “My Lord.”

“Your Majesty.” Bowing, he kissed Elsa’s hand and kept a careful watch to ensure Elsa’s ladies had left the room. “I hope you’re well this morning.”

“Tolerable, your Grace,” Elsa replied, growing suspicious of his politesse. “If perhaps in danger of going blind from reading all of this. Haven’t I the right to a personal secretary? Someone who can suffer this tedium on my behalf and distill it all down to the relevant facts for me?”

“You could, if you want to risk missing critical information because your secretary mistakenly dismisses it as unimportant.” He smiled at her. “Your father had ever the same complaint, my Lady… but in the end, he refused to let someone else’s judgment determine what he should and shouldn’t know about Arendelle.”

Heaving a sigh, Elsa nodded in resignation. “I suppose that’s reasonable enough of an argument. Would you care for a drink, my Lord? Or is the matter too urgent for civility?”

“That rather depends,” he replied cautiously.

Elsa quirked an eyebrow at him. “On?”

“How long we have to plan the wedding.”

Moving to the sideboard, Elsa hoped that the act of pouring a goblet of wine would cover her sudden discomfiture. “And whose wedding would that be, my Lord?”

“Yours.”

Wine sloshed over the sides of the cup, freezing in mid-arc and falling to the tray with a clink. Trying to remain calm, Elsa set both goblet and decanter down again and turned to face her Lord Chancellor. “Has my soulmate presented themselves, then? I’m surprised that this is how you’d choose to tell me.”

“Your Majesty and I have known one another a long time,” the older man replied, standing fast where he was. One hand clasped the opposite wrist respectfully in front of his hips, and his expression was kind but serious. “Even so, I must beg your forgiveness for speaking so familiarly to you as I am about to.”

“Lord Graveseley, what are you-”

“We both know very well who your soulmate is, Elsa,” Graveseley interrupted sternly, his brows drawing together in something like anger. “Just as we both know that there is every chance you could be pregnant with his child even as we stand here.” Elsa’s mouth opened to deny it, but Graveseley kept on before she could find the words. “You haven’t been nearly as circumspect as you believe, your Majesty, even before you had him brought to your chambers under guard and kept him there until dawn for reasons even deaf men could’ve guessed. I’ve known that Hans’ soulmark matches yours since the day he was imprisoned, and I was informed about your visits to Hans’ tower weeks ago.”

Feeling the blood drain from her face, Elsa turned back towards the sideboard to avoid having to look him in the eyes. She had known this man for her entire life, and he had been as a beloved uncle long before he’d become her mentor in matters of state. “How?”

“You know I have eyes and ears throughout the capital,” he reminded her, never moving from where he stood. It gave her the illusion of space, no matter how increasingly trapped the young queen was feeling with every word they spoke. “That includes inside the palace.” He watched her for a moment longer as her fingers flexed, stirring snowflakes into the air. “Did you think I wouldn’t understand?” he asked gently.

“I barely understand,” Elsa confessed, her voice tiny and laden with guilt. “He tried to kill us… and I still couldn’t help wanting…” She let the sentence die away, having no desire to be frank and knowing he wouldn’t need her to be explicit anyway. Another sigh left her, and Elsa squared her shoulders before turning to face him. “So you’re here to put an end to it, I take it?”

“On the contrary, your Majesty.” Retrieving a parchment from his belt, Graveseley finally approached and offered it to her. “I was being quite serious when I spoke of your marriage.”

Elsa’s brow furrowed, her posture losing some of its defensive rigidity. “But that’s impossible. Hans is convicted of attempted assassination; all but attainted by his own family. The people would never tolerate my marrying him, soulmarks or not.”

“I never said it would be to Hans.”

Frowning, Elsa took the parchment and unfolded it. It was a letter, over the seal of a foreign prince, offering his sincere and undying love for her as a woman as well as his admiration for her as a queen. “I don’t understand.”

Graveseley stepped back, letting Elsa move past him to sit and joining her on the low couch as he spoke. “While I might have hoped that you would’ve come to me for advice, rather than arranging a series of illicit trysts…” He paused and cleared his throat even as Elsa blushed crimson. “I knew that Hans bearing your mark meant that sooner or later, you would be drawn to reconcile with him on a personal level. The only solution, in my estimation, was to make discreet inquiries among the various noble houses, to see if any of their eligible sons might be in a similar situation to yourself: tied to a soulmate that is otherwise unsuitable for the role of royal spouse.” He nodded to the parchment. “I found two, and of the pair, this prince is by far the more desirable. I’ve made arrangements for an official visit.”

Uncertain of how to react, Elsa let her eyes linger on the letter, slowly absorbing every carefully calligraphed line. She had been foolish, it seemed, to think that even this aspect of her life would be one that she could have just for herself.

Without a husband or official consort, there would be those who would dispute the rights of any children she might bear to succession over Anna’s, who would at least be legitimate. But there would be others that would object to Anna’s children as potential monarchs given that their lowborn father, regardless of his being Anna’s soulmate. It could lead to civil war, at the very least; at worst, the divisive tensions could be exploited by other ruling monarchs and lead to the annexation or military takeover of Arendelle altogether. If she didn’t play the game carefully, then her people would lose.

She was not just a woman, as Anna was. For all that Anna was a princess, she had never been the Crown Princess. She was not the Queen. The fate of Arendelle had always rested on Elsa’s shoulders alone, and there was no part of her life that was not ruled by that: first, foremost and always.

“And this prince is willing to play along with what will ultimately be a charade?” Elsa asked skeptically. “Out of the kindness of his heart?”

“Out of a mutual need for discretion,” Graveseley corrected. “My informants in his kingdom tell me that his soulmate is, in fact, a mermaid. I’m certain your Majesty can appreciate the position that puts him in.”

Elsa’s eyes widened at that, and she nodded slowly. Politically, the populace of a maritime kingdom would never accept a mermaid as their queen, no matter how exceptional the mermaid or how loved the prince. Neither the peerage nor the commons would be behind him if this prince attempted to make her anything more than an official mistress. And even in that situation, their children would never be allowed to inherit his throne. A half-merling child’s physical appearance alone would be a gamble, never mind their powers.

Just as her own children’s magical potential was.

The practicality of the match was abundantly clear. And as two ruling monarchs, seeing one another for official visits would provide just enough cover in terms of the legitimacy of any children they might have with their lovers. There would be whispers. There always were. But it was the only way forward. “When does he arrive?”

“In a fortnight, your Grace.” Graveseley did nothing to hide the relief on his face at her tacit acceptance of his plan. “Plenty of time to move Prince Hans to his new accommodations.”

Elsa finally met her Lord Chancellor’s eyes, her eyebrow arching. “New accommodations?”

“Believe it or not, your Grace, you are hardly the first monarch in Arendelle that has desired discreet access to a person to whom they were not married.” Graveseley’s voice was dry, laden with sarcasm even as Elsa blushed crimson again. There is a hidden passage from the royal chambers to apartments that would be set aside for a mistress. I’ve taken the liberty of having the necessary changes made to restrict his freedom, but it will allow your Grace to visit him without having to sneak through the open corridors of the palace in the dead of night.”

Nodding slowly, Elsa drew in a long breath and released it. “It seems you’ve thought of everything, then. Does this prince know that I may already be pregnant, or have you left that to me to disclose?”

“Elsa…” Graveseley’s voice was pained as she looked up at him, her expression guarded and neutral. He’d known her for far too long to mistake it for anything less than vulnerability. Slowly, he reached across the space between them and touched her shoulder. “I’m not disappointed in you for wanting to be with him, Snowflake." It was a risk, using his girlhood nickname for her, but in the moment, it felt like the only way to prove to her that he was on her side. "Nor do I truly blame you for feeling that you had to take matters into your own hands without talking to any of us first.

“Your mother and father defied my advice in allowing you to become so isolated in the wake of the accident with your sister, and taught you that the things you needed could not coexist with your fate as the Crown Princess. While they lived, I could not countermand their wishes in the matter, and after their deaths, there was no time to bring you up to speed on matters of state and try to undo the damage they had done at the same time. But you are my goddaughter, as well as my Queen.” He sighed, the ache of over a decade’s regret in his voice. “Can you ever forgive me for not fighting harder for you?”

A lump had knotted in her throat, and Elsa could only nod, tears standing in her eyes. That he had argued against her parents for her… that _someone_ had been in her corner all along, even if they’d not been allowed to tell her… it was what Elsa had wanted for almost as long as she could remember.

“Then will you let me do this for you?” he asked. “Will you let me arrange a marriage that will keep you safe? That might even give you enough space to find a way to be happy?”

A laugh made it past the dam that had blocked her words. “It feels like forever since I was happy,” she confessed, her voice wavering between resignation and hope.

“I know.” Graveseley squeezed her shoulder, offering her a small encouraging smile. “I’m hoping this will change that, eventually.”

Her answering smile trembled, and Elsa threw herself into his arms for a familial hug. This man had been a fixture in her life since the day she’d been born, and to have him supporting her, finding a way to let her have something for herself in spite of the mess both she and Hans had made of things… it meant everything to her.

When they parted, Elsa took another breath and let it out. She wasn’t alone in this. Anna might never understand, but she had her own marriage to attend to, and she was not the Queen of Arendelle. She didn’t have to understand.

“I will write him back at once,” Elsa declared, feeling sure of herself for the first time in ages. “We must assure this Prince Eric of his welcome in Arendelle… and that his suit for our hand is as well.”

Graveseley smiled proudly at her. “Of course, your Grace.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I apologize for how long its taken for this chapter to go up. There might be one more to wrap this up, and then I will be working on the other planned fics for this universe. Thank you for sticking with this fic and series!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. I didn't realize it's been almost a year since I updated this. To everyone that was enjoying this, I'm really sorry for the wait.
> 
> Here it is: the final chapter. I have another fic in this 'verse that's almost done, so I hope to get that finished & posted within the next few weeks. Also, since I had to come up with a name for Eric's kingdom (it's never been given one in any of the canon versions of the story, TMK), I've decided to call it Besejle, which is Danish for "navigate".
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has given this 'verse a chance. I love you all.

**~~~***~~~**

Anna had been overjoyed upon returning from her tour of Misthaven with Kristof to hear that Elsa had accepted a proposal of marriage, and it had taken every trick of diplomacy Elsa had ever learned to keep her sister from finding out that Eric of Besejle was not, in fact, her soulmate. For all the general population in both kingdoms knew, he was. Only a handful in either realm knew the truth: trusted advisors on both sides who valued political stability over gossip.

Over the months of preparation, the sisters’ relationship settled as best it could. Anna had never truly understood the burdens on her elder sister growing up, and Elsa had been far too preoccupied with her own wounds to grasp how isolated Anna had become in the years after their parents’ death. The time spent preparing Elsa’s wedding gave them time together in which they could pretend, for a few minutes, that they were just sisters. Not Princess and Queen. Not ice-sorceress and ordinary woman.

It bothered Elsa somewhat that things would never truly be equal between she and her sister, or between Anna and Kristof. As a Prince Consort, Kristof was technically Anna’s equal in rank, but there were too many ways in which his non-royal lineage was obvious, and Anna too often carried a peremptory tone without considering to whom she spoke: a product of growing up with only servants and those of lesser rank for companions. More often than not, the friction translated into Kristof using the marriage bed to assert his status, and Elsa could feel the frost crackle at her fingertips whenever Anna came to her with a slight limp in her step and a carefully blank expression appearing in her eyes when anyone asked about it.

Elsa tried once, and only once, to reason with Kristof about the matter. He had seemed genuine in his dismay, decrying any wish to harm Anna and making all of the correct sounds of concern that Anna didn’t feel she could speak to him about it. Assured Elsa that he would be more mindful in future, and that he loved his wife far too much to continue hurting her.

It was three days before Elsa saw her sister again. Anna had winced and made a small sound of discomfort when seating herself on the plush cushions of Elsa’s sofa, and then told Elsa quite firmly that she and her husband would be seeking living arrangements outside the palace if Elsa ever again discussed matters of the marriage bed with Kristof. It was the most serious Elsa had ever seen her sister since their parents’ funeral, and so the subject became one of many that went unspoken within the palace walls.

Only two blessings came from the strained physical relationship between Anna and Kristof: the announcement that Anna was pregnant which came three months before Elsa’s marriage; and that Anna was far too concerned with her own affairs and planning Elsa’s wedding to even remember Hans still existed.

On the night that Hans was moved into the concubine’s apartments connected to Elsa’s, she had informed him about her impending engagement. It had been a difficult discussion for both of them: the bruised expression Hans’ eyes had held through much of her explanation had felt like knives in Elsa’s heart, and it had taken ages before she had gotten him to confess that he believed he would have to share her sexually with her husband.

She had kissed him then, fierce and desperate. He had taken her right up against the wall without even removing their clothing. In the aftermath of their bone-wrenching climaxes, Elsa was finally able to draw Hans out of his veneer of acceptance, and long hours later, Hans had finally confessed in depth the polite non-discussion that surrounded marriage and intimacy in the Southern Isles’ royal family. The almost careless dismissal of love as a factor in any matters of import, or the way his brothers’ wives would ignore the existence of their mistresses and infidelities, hiding behind proudly-lifted chins, carefully neutral faces and deliberately changed topics of conversation.

They had agreed that night that they should restrain their physical urges until after the wedding. If the point was to protect the real paternity of her children and the sanctity of the succession, then it made no sense to risk Elsa being visibly pregnant on her wedding day any more than they already had. And so while her sister struggled to defuse her husband’s sexual aggression, Elsa spent her nights learning about the pleasure Hans could bring her with fingers and mouth alone. Loving the heavy weight of his lust between her lips and the groans she could drag out of his throat when she teased him with cold fingertips before drawing him into the heat of her mouth. It was a heady power, and far more satisfying than her magic had ever been.

She could see it sometimes in his eyes: the fear that he hadn’t pleased her well enough. That she only wanted a child from him, and that his crimes would never be washed clean in her eyes. That there would come a day when she did not return, and he would face the rest of his life alone in his cell. Or worse, that she would someday have no choice but to order his execution.

There was nothing that could be done to change it. It was a power she had to hold onto for the sake of her kingdom. Just like Anna, Elsa was tied to a man who could never truly be her equal. Except Hans could not dare to react with aggression, for fear it would cost him his life.

And if there was a certain selfish satisfaction that Elsa took from that, it was no one’s business but her own. She was, after all, the queen.

* * *

Eric and his entourage arrived a fortnight before the appointed day, borne on the great barge that would serve as the venue for the ceremony. For three generations, members of the royal family in Besejle had been married at sea, although the tragedy that had befallen Elsa’s parents had been given consideration, and the concession had been made that the ship would not leave the harbor and would return to the dock for the wedding night. Her soon-to-be husband was a gentle man, Elsa found, with a fondness for music and animals and a genuine concern for his people. He was an undemanding sort, not threatened by her rank as queen in her own right or the fact that their marriage would, for all intents and purposes, be in name only.

Privately, Elsa had her doubts about how sanguine he would be about those realities if his soulmate had not been a mermaid.

It was three days before Elsa realized that her fiancé’s soulmate was embedded into his retinue. The scions of royal houses traveled with huge households for such affairs, after all, made up of men and women both. Elsa hadn’t taken particular notice of any of them as she and her court greeted Eric and his parents at the docks, and the retainers of the Besejle royal family had been quietly taken in hand by her own staff so that they could, as good servants did, seamlessly undertake their duties even in a realm with which they were unfamiliar.

And so it had come as a surprise when a missive had come from Eric, asking for Elsa to meet him in the courtyard at dawn, only for there to be a woman waiting for her there instead. She was a few inches shorter than Elsa, with a wealth of bright red hair flowing in a long braid down her back. She wore a blue morning dress, and Elsa could see a wide, intricate decoration on her left wrist. It was wide enough to be a cuff, but as Elsa could see as she drew closer that it appeared almost like several bracelets linked together, each strung with a variety of seashells and pearls. “Hello?”

The woman turned, and Elsa almost stepped back in shock. Her face was ordinary enough: pale skin over delicate cheekbones, slim nose set over coral pink lips which pulled into an open, genuine smile. But her eyes… large and luminous, her most salient feature, they nonetheless had an alien cast to them that couldn’t be hidden if you were looking directly at them. Something that Elsa knew on instinct was the result of a species evolving to be able to see even in the darkest deep of the oceans.

One blink. Another. And then the strangeness about them was gone, tucked away behind a glamour of perfectly normal, human brown eyes. “Hello,” she replied, her voice carrying liquid notes that almost sounded like she was singing rather than speaking. “I’m Ariel. Thank you for coming so early.” She gestured at the flowers arranged in the courtyard. “I love the way flowers smell first thing in the morning, with the sun hitting the fresh dew. It’s so… unique. Soft, you know?”

Elsa found herself nodding, coming to stand beside the mermaid in human form. She’d never heard the name, but those eyes had been evidence enough. “I thought the missive said Prince Eric would be meeting me here.”

She blushed; Elsa was surprised at how red the color was. She wasn’t sure why. “Sorry about that; I wasn’t sure you’d want to meet me. Eric explained the situation, you see, but… well, technically I _am_ the other woman in all this.”

Elsa smiled, relaxing and seating herself on one of the benches near a fragrant bush. “It’s not a very normal situation, is it?”

A laugh like sunlight sparkling on the waves, and Ariel joined her on the seat, reaching out to take one of Elsa’s hands. “You and I aren’t normal women. It stands to reason that we’d have to go to extraordinary lengths to protect what’s ours.”

Nodding, Elsa found herself thawing towards this young woman. She hadn’t been sure if they would ever meet, but the fact that Ariel had gone out of her way to arrange their introduction, and discreetly as well, spoke volumes. “How can I help?”

“Actually, help is what I’m here to offer you.” At Elsa’s confused expression, Ariel patted her hand and moved from the bench, retrieving what appeared to be a small strongbox from the shadow of the flowering bush she’d been admiring. Returning with it, she placed it between them. “I brought these for you.”

Startled, having never expected a wedding gift from the soulmate of her fiancé, Elsa examined the box for a moment. It was a small, sturdy chest, designed to be latched with a free lock rather than having the locking mechanism built into the wall and lid. It was clearly old, though perhaps recently cleaned and restored. Curious, Elsa lifted the lid. Inside, there were four things: a necklace made from knotted pearls, some as blue-gray as the winter sea at sunrise, some as white as fresh snow; a stoppered bottle containing some kind of liquid; a ring made from white gold and set with sapphires as pale as the heart of a glacier; and a pair of white traveling gloves, made from kid leather and embroidered at the vented corners with the crest of the Arendellian royal family.

Elsa was quite sure she’d stopped breathing entirely.

“We have a tradition, you see,” Ariel went on saying, her voice gentle as Elsa stared at the treasures. “When you entwine your life and heart to someone else’s, you should always do so with a piece of the past, so remember from whence you come; a symbol of yourself, so that you don’t lose yourself in the union; a token from a friend, to remember that your new companion is not the center of your life but a part of it; and something for your new home, to bring luck into the new phase of your life.”

“That’s…” Tears were blurring her vision, choking her words. Elsa finally forced herself to look up into those glamoured eyes. “It’s a beautiful custom, but how did you do this?”

“It took a long time, actually,” Ariel confessed. “The ocean is a pretty big place, and lots of ships have gone down in storms over the centuries. Eric got someone to make me drawings of what to look for, but it was mostly just luck that I found it in time.”

Unable to stop the tears from spilling free, Elsa lifted her mother’s wedding ring from where it lay against a pair of her father’s traveling gloves. They’d been cleaned; the ring was no worse for having been submerged for so many years, but the salt stains on the gloves couldn’t be removed completely. “I don’t…” Again, she shook herself to find her words, but this time she couldn’t look up as she spoke them. “Their bodies?”

“We gave them a grave,” Ariel told her. “Merfolk let ourselves return to the ocean completely, but Eric told me that humans like to bury their dead. So I got some friends to help once we found them, and we put their bones under some rocks in a protected place. They were holding each other when they drowned, I think; their bones were all together. So we put them to rest that way.” She bit her lip as Elsa choked on a sob, her father’s gloves clutched in her fist. “I’m sorry we couldn’t bring their bones here, but there wouldn’t be any way to explain how we did it.”

“No,” Elsa agreed. “It’s all right.” Reluctantly, she put down her parents’ belongings and wiped at her eyes, wishing she had a handkerchief. “I can’t keep both of these, though… Anna should have something of theirs, too.”

“I can find some other things if you like,” Ariel offered. “Now that I know where the wreck is, it’ll be easy to go back and salvage what I can. But these are for you; pieces of your past.”

The selfish part of Elsa conceded the point and she nodded. There was precious little she could keep just for herself, after all. “So which are the others?”

“Well, the necklace is to represent you,” Ariel explained, lifting the necklace out so that Elsa could see the graduated size of them. “And I suppose it could be considered the token from a friend… if you’d like to consider us friends.”

“I do,” Elsa confirmed fervently. For what Ariel was allowing in her marriage to Eric alone, Elsa would want that. But the gift of items that had belonged to her parents… of knowing that their bodies had a grave and that they’d died together… these were kindnesses that Elsa had known little like in her life, even from family. “And the bottle?”

“That…” Ariel’s eyes twinkled, and Elsa thought the glamour dropped away for just a moment. “You must drink that at the first toast of the wedding feast.”

Elsa’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What is it?”

“It’s a secret mixture. Very few outside of the merfolk know about it, but it has never failed any merwoman that has taken it.” Elsa’s frown deepened and Ariel’s smile grew even more sly. “It takes a few hours to soak into your blood after you drink it, which is why you must drink it at the feast. The ship will be docked by sundown, and Eric told me that they’re sneaking you ashore so that you can be with your soulmate while we have our wedding night on board.”

The frank acknowledgment of the plan that she and Eric had agreed upon, and the allusion to what all four of them would be doing as a result, drove a furious blush into Elsa’s cheeks. “What does that have to do with this potion?”

“Once the sun has gone down, your lover must bring you to pleasure at least three times.” Ariel almost giggled as Elsa fidgeted in embarrassment, her blush flaming almost as red as Ariel’s hair. “So long as he plants his seed in your womb sometime between your third climax and the next sunrise, there will be a child growing inside you at dawn.”

Elsa’s eyes flew wide, her discomfiture forgotten as her head jerked up to stare at the mermaid with guarded hope. “This… you’re certain?”

“I might be the first mermaid to want to live above water,” Ariel assured her, “but merwomen have been using this potion for centuries. Some human man will catch the eye of a mermaid, and once she’s sure he knows what he’s doing, she’ll brew the potion and seduce him one last time. I’ve never known one to come away without a babe in her belly.”

“What if it only works for merwomen?” Elsa asked, desperately trying to be cautious about this. “Has it ever worked on a human woman?”

Ariel nodded. “A young lady-in-waiting to Eric’s mother. She was afraid that her husband would set her aside because they’d been married for three years and she hadn’t conceived. I brewed the potion and told her what to do; three moons later, they were announcing her pregnancy.”

Carefully replacing everything into the box, Elsa closed the lid and set it gently to the ground before pulling Ariel into a fierce hug. “I’ve never had a friend that was a woman before,” she confessed, surprised by the strength she could feel in the mermaid’s reciprocal embrace. “I’m so glad my first is you.”

“Thank you for agreeing to this,” Ariel responded, her voice muffled slightly by Elsa’s neck. “If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know what Eric and I would’ve done. But now we can be together and he can still take the throne someday when his father dies, and his people are too important to him for me to ask that he give them up for my sake.”

“I understand that all too well,” Elsa told her. They relaxed out of the hug at the same time, though Elsa didn’t quite let her go.

Ariel didn’t immediately, either. “I know you do.”

* * *

The wedding of the Queen of Arendelle to the Crown Prince of Besejle came off, surprisingly, without incident. Such grandiose affairs were never without their problems, and the negotiations leading up to it had been lengthy, intricate and delayed due to the rough seas of winter making travel between the two kingdoms impossible for part of the year. But after all of the logistics were worked out and the treaty binding their realms agreed upon, the event itself ran as smoothly as anyone might have wished it to.

It surprised Elsa how easily she could put aside the bittersweetness that it wasn’t Hans sharing this day with her. That it was a near stranger, kind and generous though he may be, with whom she shared her wedding meal and danced while the peerage of two realms and more looked on. Perhaps it was the fact that the emotion was shared; she knew that Eric wished it could be his titian-haired mermaid rather than a blonde ice-sorceress in his arms as the reels melted into waltzes, but they both knew this was necessary. The pomp placated the masses and protected their privacy, and if they didn’t look the part of utterly besotted soulmates, it could be blamed on their limited acquaintance prior to the wedding or shrugged off as the dignified reserve monarchs should wear in public.

As the sun slid down below the horizon and the barge docked for the night, Elsa and Eric made their excuses and removed themselves from the deck, as if disappearing into Eric’s stateroom to consummate their marriage. There, Elsa’s snow-white wedding dress was hidden beneath a voluminous cloak, and Eric’s trusted advisor Grimsby escorted Elsa to the gangplank after she, Eric and Ariel exchanged heartfelt but hurried good nights.

The carriage ride back to the palace seemed to take forever. Graveseley had arranged it, with the driver knowing only that someone was being discreetly transported to one of the servants’ entrances of the palace. From there, Elsa made her way through the halls, mostly deserted since the majority of the court was still celebrating her marriage in one way or another, shedding the cloak only once she was safely in her apartments.

Hans was waiting when she arrived, and it took Elsa a moment to realize that, somehow, he’d managed to get hold of an outfit nearly identical to the one Eric had worn throughout the ceremony. It stunned her into stillness when he turned, his expression slowly growing awed as he took in the sight of her in her wedding gown. “You look…” He trailed off, eyes devouring her. “You make a beautiful bride, my love.”

The words never failed to ignite something inside her, thawing a heart she’d thought frozen for years. “And you a most handsome groom. Although I’m fairly sure that wasn’t one of the outfits you packed for my coronation.”

“No.” Hans’ smile grew almost impish as he crossed the room. “Your husband arranged it after he came to see me.”

Elsa’s eyes widened as he closed on her. “I didn’t realize he’d done that.”

Hans nodded, reaching up with gentle fingers to brush a stray lock of hair from her face. “He wanted to get a measure of me, I think; considering what I was convicted of, I’m not all that surprised. But we came to an understanding, man to man, and the next thing I knew, one of the servants was delivering these with a note from your husband, warning me that if I ever hurt you again, I’ll answer to him personally.”

His hand lingered at the edge of her face; Elsa leaned into it, letting her eyes drift closed as the warmth of his palm cupped her face. “Stop calling him that.”

“What?” Hans asked. “Your husband?” When Elsa nodded, he chuckled softly, his free hand coming up to frame the other side of her face. “He is, Elsa. I can only ever be your prisoner. That doesn’t change just because I hold your heart and bear your mark.”

It was the most natural thing in the world to slip her arms up around his neck. To draw his head down with a whisper of his name and seal their mouths together. It wasn’t long before their fingers were setting to work on frog closures and lacings, their mouths parting only long enough for them to concentrate on the uncooperative fastenings before sealing back together again.

Finally naked, Hans gathered Elsa up into his arms and bore her to the bed, setting her carefully on the edge as he kissed her. Her fingers barely had a chance to graze his erection before he was gliding down to kneel before her, hands pressing her knees apart so that his mouth could reach the nest of blonde curls between her thighs. Elsa gave a soft cry, one hand threading into his hair and the other knotting into the sheets.

The first time he had done this, it had shocked her so much that she’d used his hair to yank his head away. By now, it was an easy intimacy between them, with Hans’ tongue mapping her folds with a practiced slowness that made Elsa want to howl in frustration, his fingers refusing to put enough pressure on the sensitive pearl hidden at the peak of them to bring her relief. It was a game to him sometimes: seeing how long he could keep her just at the edge of release; other nights, he pushed her over the tipping point as soon as he could and then kept at her until she was pleading and oversensitive, unable to distinguish between one climax and the next.

They were games she couldn’t play back against him; not yet, anyway. Her own skills at lovemaking were too untutored, and Hans had no meaningful interactions outside of her visits to his cell. It made him voracious for her, and all too easily brought to climax by the sight of the Queen of Arendelle on her knees, pale mouth wrapped around his length with no artistry but more than a little determination to please him as well as he pleased her.

Tonight, though… tonight he was tormenting her, his mouth backing off just when the pressure was about to crest, floating kisses along the tender skin of her thighs and the ticklish arch of her knees. It dragged a broken sound from her throat every time he moved away from where she needed him most, the sudden decrease of intensity made almost painful by the fact that, for once, it was crucial that he not decide to deny her pleasure for hours on end.

The fifth time he had her on the very edge, a sob wrenched from her throat when his tongue drew back from where it had been stroking just inside her channel. His mouth was on hers a moment later to swallow it, stealing her breath as he tumbled her onto her back. The taste of her own need on his lips, musky and glacial, sent Elsa careening over the edge, his name a ragged scream as Hans lined up and thrust deep with a groan.

“It’s all right.” It was a gentle murmur, nearly lost in the roar of her climax intensifying at the feel of his girth stretching her open. It had been too long since she’d felt it. Her legs wrapped up around his waist as he began to move, a deep, steady rhythm that Elsa could feel in her bones. “I’ll give you what you need, Elsa.”

In any other moment, Elsa might have guessed that Eric had told him of the potion Ariel had gifted to her. That Hans knew of the ritual they must perform that would leave her pregnant with his child by morning. But all Elsa knew was his body, moving inside hers at long last, and the pulse of his soul within the mark limned into her breastbone.

Without warning, he was pulling out completely, bending to kiss her before breaking her grip on him. Panic gripped at her in the half-heartbeat before it registered that he was moving her, turning her over and pulling her up and bracing her hands against the wall behind the head of the bed. Elsa could hear herself begging for him as she spread her knees so he could mount her from behind, his hands finding her breasts and his voice a possessive rumble in her ear as he drove back in.

Elsa lost track of everything after that. His fingers pinched and tugged and rubbed at her nipples as he pounded into her, sending twinned flashes of lightning into her already-throbbing core. She was all but helpless under him in this position, her body laid open for his attentions while she braced her weight and held on. It should have terrified her, being so vulnerable in the presence of a man that had once held a sword poised to end her life.

Instead, it made her keen as the fingers of one hand slid down to brush over the swollen nub just above the place where he was buried inside her, the pressure his fingertips exerted just barely enough to send her shuddering into a second climax.

“That’s it,” he urged, still worrying at the bundle of nerves as he paused the motion of his hips. The implacable length of him felt obdurate as stone as she spasmed around him, her muscles desperately milking at him as he drew her orgasm on and on and on with every pass of his fingers. “You’re so beautiful like this… so very tight as you come on my cock…”

“Hans…” One hand pushed away from the wall, reaching back to wrap around his neck. His head turned until their mouths were a breath apart, and Elsa stared up into those forest-green eyes, lust-hot and heavy-lidded. “Please, Hans…”

“Tell me what you need,” he coaxed. His thumb brushed across her nipple, dragging another cry from her lips. “Tell me, and it’s yours.”

There was no reason he would know about the potion. Every reason for him to take the words the wrong way. And yet Elsa couldn’t help the way they slipped out in a thready plea, her eyes locked onto his as she prayed he would understand. “ _Make me pregnant._ ”

A shudder drove through him, vibrating up through the place where they were joined. And then Hans had pulled free of her again and Elsa was being practically thrown back down across the bed, the impact stealing the breath from her lungs and robbing her of voice to do more than gasp as Hans folded down and buried his face between her legs again.

If he had been languid before, there was nothing teasing about his movements now. Her legs were draped over his shoulders and Hans’ tongue was ruthless, three fingers thrusting into her slick channel as he suckled and laved. Her third climax, so crucial to the potion’s success, built and built and finally crashed over her senses like a collapsing smithy, Elsa screaming her pleasure even as Hans rose up and buried himself to the root, her legs still slung over his shoulders as he battered the gates of her womb.

“Mine,” he was snarling. Elsa’s fingernails dug into his scalp; the only place on him she could get hold of; as he gave into a ferocity she had only suspected he’d been hiding from her since the announcement of her marriage. “You’re mine, Elsa.”

“Yes,” she sobbed. She could feel the magic coiling inside her, primed by her third orgasm and waiting only for his. “Please, Hans…”

“Only mine,” he growled again. His rhythm was growing erratic, his breathing harsh in her ear as he hammered into her. “Not his.”

There it was; she could feel it, like poison in a wound. By instinct alone, Elsa slid one hand down until it covered her mark on his chest: the Arendellish tulip, growing from a bank of snow. His gaze focused on her though his cadence never stopped, and Elsa held his eyes as she let her power flow into the mark, suffusing only deep enough into his skin to leave a frostbitten scar along the edges of the mark that made him hers. “Prove it, then.”

The sensation coupled with the challenge proved the final straw. Elsa very nearly climaxed again herself when she felt his seed flood into her, hot and potent. Felt her womb soak it in greedily, the magic that the potion had worked in her ensuring that she was fertile enough for it to take root. She let her eyes drift closed as he hung suspended above her, his breath ragged and his manhood twitching the last of his spend inside her, concentrating on the feel of the magic working inside her.

When Hans finally allowed her legs to slip down from his shoulders and opened his eyes, his gaze was wet. “Elsa?”

She smiled up at him, her hands cupping his jaw and bringing his face down to hers for a gentle kiss. “I love you,” she murmured.

“And I you,” he replied instantly. His arms slid beneath her body, cradling her against him as he rolled them to the side. There was an unwelcome emptiness between her legs as his softened length was dislodged by the motion, but Elsa pushed it away and tangled her legs with his own as she gazed at him across the pillows. “Elsa, I felt… there was something… what have you done?”

“Nothing dangerous,” Elsa promised him. “It was a wedding gift to us from Eric’s soulmate, that’s all.” Hans’ eyebrows knitted and Elsa kissed him, soft and reassuring. “It would be bad luck to tell you now,” she added, hoping he would understand her meaning.

One heartbeat. Another. And then realization dawned, and Hans’ hand slid between their bodies to splay out across her lower stomach. “Yes,” he agreed, the awe in his voice telling her that he understood. “It would.”

“Best to not think about it, then,” Elsa teased. Still wet, her body still humming from residual magic and multiple climaxes, Elsa pressed close and kissed him again, open and warm.

“Insatiable witch,” he muttered. She could feel the stirring of his own renewed interest between them, belying what those words could have meant, and all but grinned against his mouth as he rolled her onto her back again. “My queen,” he amended, pushing up into her again as her legs wrapped around his waist.

It was calmer between them this time, the madness of months without being so deeply entwined having died away and leaving something more intimate in its wake. Elsa let Hans control the pace, giving herself up to the magic he could work on her body and the feel of their child being molded into existence inside her.

Someday, she would have to explain to that child why its father stayed locked away in a cell. It would never be easy for any of them. And she would need to be careful to time any future pregnancies to coincide with state visits to or by her husband. What had been wrought between them, by her magic and his ambition, would never go away. None of it mattered as Hans moved inside her, the heat of him making her forget the icy cold of her power, both as a queen and as an ice sorceress. She could forget it all, tucked away in this private bower with the man that loved her above all others, no matter how rocky the start between them.

In his arms, she could finally let it all go.


End file.
